Creating job opportunities in Mexico

In this part of our series Co-ben­e­fits Sto­ries, Aldo Coro­nel explains how renew­ables can accel­er­ate the employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties in Mex­i­co. For this series, we have asked ener­gy pro­fes­sion­als that have par­tic­i­pat­ed in our train­ings for their thoughts and expe­ri­ences on co-ben­e­fits of renew­able ener­gy in their country.

“The first thing that jumped to my mind was job cre­ation as it has been some­thing I have strug­gled with since grad­u­at­ing from col­lege. Frankly, oppor­tu­ni­ties have been scarce and high­ly sought, since there are a lot of young peo­ple like me grad­u­at­ing with degrees relat­ing in some way or anoth­er to sustainability.

I believe that if we can cre­ate more oppor­tu­ni­ties in renew­able ener­gy gen­er­a­tion through pri­vate or pub­lic invest­ments, we could tran­si­tion towards a green­er econ­o­my. Nowa­days, here in Mex­i­co we only have a state-owned elec­tric­i­ty sup­pli­er which reduces alter­na­tives in elec­tric­i­ty sup­ply for cli­mate-con­scious peo­ple. Renew­ables have a chance of equal­is­ing afford­able elec­tric­i­ty access for every­body while at the same time offer­ing peo­ple job oppor­tu­ni­ties at every lev­el of the eco­nom­ic lad­der. These work­ers can con­tribute to the improve­ment of their local cli­mate con­di­tions by reduc­ing their com­mu­ni­ties’ depen­dence on GHG emit­ting pow­er plants, and at the same time being a part of the nation­al econ­o­my. This could, even­tu­al­ly, bring more invest­ment to Mex­i­co for fur­ther devel­op­ment of renew­able ener­gies cre­at­ing a pos­i­tive feed­back loop.”

Based on insights of the COBENEFITS research group, the Renew­ables Acad­e­my (RENAC) cur­rent­ly con­ducts train­ings in Turkey, Kenya, South Africa and Mex­i­co. Par­tic­i­pants learn about co-ben­e­fits of renew­able ener­gy in cli­mate change mit­i­ga­tion, tools to quan­ti­fy and com­mu­ni­cate social and eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ties and poli­cies and instru­ments to mobilise them.